Meeting of NOW Working Groups

Networking Meeting of all thematic NOW Working Groups

21 – 23 JUNE 2018, Mannswörth

In early summer of 2017, Act.Now initiated four thematic working groups in the fields of Education and Diversity, Exploitation, Gender Equality and Trauma Surviving. In addition, another working group focussing on Children’s Rights, was established in the spring of 2018. During the past months all NOW Working Groups have defined their goals, methods and scopes of work. Some have already come up with concrete projects, a few of them have already been implemented, more are on the way.

Since these various thematic areas of work are interlinked, the Networking Meeting of NOW Working Groups from 21 – 23 June 2018 brought all members together to get to know one another. The experts shared their respective expertise and experiences in order to foster cooperation and create synergies.

At the beginning of this meeting, the participants exchanged practical solutions in the course of a Field Exposure, by visiting thematically liked institutions and projects dedicated to social cohesion in Vienna.

The field exposures included:

Schule Holzhausergasse – Class “EinsA”: a special integrative class including 7 children with different kinds of special needs, several with migrant or refugee background

Abendgymnasium – Transition Classes: Classes to prepare refugee students who want to attend the evening school to get their high school diploma

Sprungbrett für Mädchen: an organisation that offers consulting, skills development and workshops on empowerment for girls and women

EFEU – Association for the Development of Feminist Educational & Teaching Models: EfEU focuses on gender, diversity and education and its goal is to raise awareness of sexism in schools, academic and social education and society

HEMAYAT – Betreuungszentrum für Folter- und Kriegsüberlebende: The non-profit organisation provides psychotherapy, psychological and medical support for survivors of war and torture

Asylkoordination Österreich: The asylum coordination Austria supports, connects and coordinates volunteers and organisations which counsel refugees and practices political advocacy

Public Primary School Am Kaisermühlendamm: the school focusses on Children’s Rights, Democracy and Inclusion, offering a “School Parliament” that decides what the main focus is going to be for the next two months

“Wohngemeinschaft Noemi” (Don Bosco Refugee Programme): shared apartments for 30 teenagers / young adults, the goal being social and communal integration and participation

In the following days the NOW Working Groups identified cross-cutting issues, defined projects they will work on interdisciplinary in the future and developed new approaches with special emphasis on children and youth.

Participating NOW Working Groups

In the upcoming months, all the NOW Working Groups are going to meet up in different cities in Europe and the MENAT-Region, in order to gain insight into the work of local institutions and further develop their respective projects until all of them meet again at the upcoming NOW Conference in January 2019.